My Word for 2024: Kindness

 “This is a sermon about kindness, simple kindness.  It’s a sermon about the opportunities that we have, all of us, …to treat other people with gentleness, meekness, tenderness, mercy, and kindness.  Sometimes we do; sometimes we don’t, but you know what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about kindness, simple kindness.”  Dr. Thomas Long, from the sermon, “Be Kind, Be Kind, Be Kind”

Looking back at some of my blog posts, I’ve quoted Dr. Long so much, I think I owe him royalties.  Although, a percentage of nothing, is still nothing.  But, as usual, I digress….

As noted in previous years, I follow the leadership of a dear friend, Dave Carr, and I adopt a word I want to focus on each year, rather than making a New Year’s resolution.  Let’s take a quick look back, we are now in year 4 of this practice:

2021 – Faith.  I adopted this word because I had recently left the church after being a faithful member for all of my adult life.  This one has gone quite well, even though I have not returned to the church, I believe my faith, my love of Jesus Christ and all that He did for us, has grown even stronger. 

2022 – Forgiveness.  Bleah.  Not everything can go as planned, I guess.  I had hoped if I’d really focus on forgiveness, and specifically, self-forgiveness, I’d overcome this obstacle.  Still, not a whole lot of headway on this one.  Maybe this is a life-long project rather than one to conquer in a year.

2023 – Gratitude.  Actually, I think I did well on this one.  I tried to look at the positive aspect of any situation and find gratitude for the positives, and even the learning moments from the negatives.

For 2024, I’ve chosen Kindness, and as I look back at some of my previous posts, not sure how this one didn’t come into play sooner.  As noted, I love to quote Dr. Long, I heard that sermon over 30 years ago, and it still is one of my top “go to” sermons.  And, as many of you know, Mr. Rogers is one of my heroes in life, I wish I could be more like him, but I suspect I’m not the only one.  The man was so kind and compassionate to everyone around him.

To be clear up front, and Dr. Long expounded on this in his sermon, kindness doesn’t mean that you just give in on everything and let people have their way, or not hold them accountable.  In many ways, it can be just the opposite.  Kindness oftentimes demands that we stand up for what we believe in, support those who need our support, and hold people accountable for what they are responsible for.  I remember when I read Mr. Rogers’ biography, it was laced with moments where he had to stand firm, hold his ground, and passionately argue for the proper way to educate and entertain children.  The path of kindness isn’t always the easiest way to go.  But it’s usually the right way to go. 

I was texting back and forth on New Year’s Eve with Elijah, one of my former colleagues at WIKA Sensor Technology, and really a wonderful young man.  When I told him about the word I chose, his reply was, “If your goal has been kindness, you achieved it…at least for me.  Thank you for everything.”  Yeah, I probably did achieve it with Elijah, although probably not always, but it’s easy to be kind to Elijah. Elijah is a great young man, and he also takes on responsibility quite well.  It would be difficult not to be kind to Elijah, but there are all those others….

Yes, all those others.  The easy path is to be kind to people like Elijah, the hard path is to be kind to all of those people who get under your skin for whatever reason it is that day.  We all have our beliefs, our view of the world or issues, whatever it might be, so I’ll let you think about or imagine your own, but as I visualize that person, those people, who seems to always be able to get under my skin, for whatever reason, how am I going to exercise kindness to them today?  As I imagine it, this won’t be an easy path, but I’m bound and determined to get better and show, even that really irritating person, kindness today.  I may disagree with them, I may stand up for what I believe in, I may hold them accountable for what they were supposed to do, but I can do it in a kind way.

And quite frankly, one of the greatest culprits, the one who can really piss me off, is me.   Do you know how many times a day, I have a conversation with myself that starts with:

“Steve, you idiot!”

“You’re such a fucking moron!”

“How could you be so stupid!”

It hurts to even write it.  But, it’s the truth that I wish weren’t so.  When I let myself down, when I don’t meet those expectations I set for myself, I could show a bit more compassion and kindly, gently admonish myself to do better the next time around.

Recently, we went to a yoga class on New Year’s Day, and Emily had affirmation cards for us to pick, without being able to see what was on them.  I picked this one:

I immediately wanted to put it back, because I thought, there’s no way I’m deeply loved by the universe!  And then I thought, kindness, yes, I got this card for a reason.  Most likely, kindness will have to start with me, and maybe, I can or will get better at showing kindness to the other people who irritate me in my life.

Kindness, simple kindness.  I think I’ve chosen a very challenging, but worthwhile, word for 2024.  And who knows, maybe I’ll finally make some headway on 2022’s word, Forgiveness, in the process!

Be Kind, Be Kind, Be Kind

 As I noted in my previous blog post, "Braving the Wilderness", somewhere along the way, probably in the midst of reading "Living Untethered" highlighted below, I softened my view, I came to realize how special each and every student was, and what each of them brought to the classroom.  There's no doubt, it is quite the menagerie of personalities, abilities and work habits, but they are all special.

I came to realize that about many of my colleagues around campus.  I struggled at first with some of the interaction, I was used to the corporate environment where if you sent an e-mail, a question or request, you got a reply back, usually, relatively promptly.  I had many instances where I wouldn't get any replies at all.  I finally gave up and would just walk across campus and go talk to the person, which was probably what I should have been doing in the first place.

In any event, the following is the message I sent my students at the end of the year.  I also sent it to some of my colleagues, who had been particularly helpful supporting me through my first semester.  

Michael Singer got me started, he has some beautiful passages in "Living Untethered", it took me back to my favorite sermon from Dr. Tom Long, "Be Kind, Be Kind, Be Kind", which I heard over 30 years ago, and wore out a cassette tape, playing it over and over again.  And how could I ever go wrong quoting one of my greatest heroes, Mr. Rogers?

Final Thoughts

As we close the semester and head into the holiday season, I’ll leave you with a few thoughts.  Most of what I ever come up with isn’t original, I love to quote my favorite authors, theologians, heroes. 

From Michael Singer in “Living Untethered”:

“The mind continually grasps on to what is coming into your senses, it focuses on thoughts, emotions.  When you quiet the mind, you can truly see the incredibly beautiful person inside of you.  God made you and God made you beautiful.”

From my favorite sermon from Dr. Tom Long:

“Kindness is a refusal to look at other people in the light of how they are in the present tense and an insistence on looking at them in the light of what God is making of them in God’s future.  To put it bluntly, kindness is an act of civil disobedience.  It’s a refusal to treat people according to the customs and the mores and the traditions of the status quo of the world around us and an insistence on seeing them and treating them in light of who they will become in God’s future.”

And from one of my greatest heroes, Mr. Rogers:

“You’ve made this day a special day by just your being you.  There’s no person in the whole world like you.  And I like you just the way you are.”

Finally, one last comment from Dr. Long:

“There are only three things important in human life: be kind, be kind, be kind.”

See the incredibly beautiful person inside of you.  See the beauty of everything, and everyone, around you.  And be kind, including, especially, to yourself.

Have a great holiday.

Braving the Wilderness

“You are only free when you realize you belong no place – you belong every place – no place at all.  The price is high.  The reward is great.” Dr. Maya Angelou

As many of you know, I embarked on a new journey a few months ago, shedding the corporate life that I’ve lived for close to forty years to find my dharma, to find where I belong.  Spoiler alert, I’m not sure I found my dharma, and I learned a lot about belonging, in many ways, particularly from reading Brene Brown’s “Braving the Wilderness” and the quote above from Dr. Angelou.  Most importantly, I learned a great deal about myself, or maybe I re-learned some things about myself, and found out some new things that somehow I never knew in my 63 years on this earth.

Old Dog, Old Tricks

Sadly, in some ways, I just haven’t changed.  I still overcome my lack of organizational skills with brute force and over-preparation.  As I started out the semester, I would go in early, stay late, and work on accounting problems all day from the chapters in each of the courses I was teaching.  Thankfully, I was able to sprinkle in some classes in between, or potentially I would have gone completely insane. 

I would sit in my office, doing problem after problem, moving from textbook to textbook, online problem to online problem, wearing myself out each day.  On weekends, the process was the same, the only difference was I was doing it sitting in the backroom of the house.  Continually, working problem after problem.

In the process, I discovered a new variant of a recent disease – Accounting Problem Foggy Brain.  I found that doing hours and hours of accounting problems led me to this dull, numbing sensation where I really couldn’t think clearly anymore.  I’d do a problem, I’d check the answer, and no matter how easy the problem was, I’d get it wrong.  I’d get so angry at myself, how in the world could you possibly have gotten that wrong?  It didn’t matter, my brain was just too foggy.  Now, a smarter person may have walked away, but I would go right back at it, and try again. 

Eventually, as I would discuss this with Laurel, she would have some suggestions, like, why don’t you get up and take a walk around campus?  Do you really have to go in first thing in the morning?  Why don’t you work a little from home, and then go in?  Why don’t you go to the Library or somewhere else and do some work from there?  Hmmm, maybe she has a point? 

I did eventually take some of her advice, once in a while, I would go for a walk during the day, enjoy the beauty of the campus, not nearly enough, but I did.  I did start going in a bit later on some days, I’d do some work at home to break it up a bit, which helped.  I’d give my head a chance to clear on my drive to work.  Weekends were still painful, I’d work hour upon hour straight, doing accounting problem after accounting problem.  While I know this may be everyone’s dream, they can get a bit old after a while.

So I learned, or re-learned, that yet again, my standard way of addressing any task or issue is to just work myself into the ground no matter how efficient, or inefficient, that process is.

Well I Never Expected That

It didn’t come to the surface immediately, but after a few weeks I had a brand new discovery, and something I never expected – I was really lonely.

It took me a while to figure it out, and as noted, I never expected it.  I’ve been an introvert all my life, so I didn’t really think or believe human interaction was that important to me, but I found out, the hard way, that it was.

Outside of my time in the classroom, which really isn’t as much human interaction as it is presentation, I didn’t have much human interaction.  I had spent the last 40 years or so working in organizations, with people, in teams, and I spent a lot of time interacting with my personnel, colleagues, customers, vendors, whomever.  When I was a CFO or General Manager, I would consciously walk the shop floor or throughout the building talking to people in the organization.  I always believed that this was part of my responsibility, making sure the people working there, doing the value-added jobs, could see me, talk to me, tell me any issues or problems they were having.

I discovered that it wasn’t just out of a sense of duty I did this, it was because I needed that interaction.  I used to love to write “words of wisdom” on Marci’s whiteboard and wait for her to come in and read it, and then we’d laugh and laugh about it.  I loved to twist Yelena’s ponytail and hear her yell a fake “Ow!”.  I loved to ask Szabo, how’s it going today, and almost, without fail, hearing “It’s all jacked up”, and then find out why it was all jacked up.  I loved to quote “Stepbrothers” to Jillian, listen to Nancy say, “here’s what I’m going to tell you…”, hear Bernadette laugh, try to convince Jessica she needed another cat, tell Becky “make it so, Number One!” 

I found that the university setting is kind of like a bunch of independent contractors working in the same place.  We see each other, we have some interaction, but for the most part, we all do our own thing.  Most don’t get the sheer joy of doing accounting problems all day, but they probably do some other, more mundane, tasks each day.  There’s just not a whole lot of interaction amongst us, and we all go about our business and go home each day, to start over again the next day. 

As noted, I learned something new about myself, something I never expected.  I never realized how much that social interaction meant to me, until it was gone.  I couldn’t believe on a campus full of people, how lonely I could feel and how hard that was for me.

Other Than That Mrs. Lincoln, How Was the Play?

Most importantly, I really enjoyed the classroom, and I enjoyed the students.  Of course, it wasn’t perfect, I’m sure I was a bit rusty in the classroom, it had been about six years since I taught, and I learned along the way some things I’ll do differently in the Spring, but overall, I enjoyed being in the classroom and teaching.

The students were a box of chocolates, a mix of very good and driven to not so much.  It’s funny, even though I would get frustrated with some of them at times, I grew to appreciate each of them for what they brought to the classroom.  I have a second post coming that highlights this, but I came to realize that each of us is unique, and we all bring something to the table, and I need to appreciate what each student brings to the table, and for that matter, what each person anywhere brings to the table.  Not always easy.

I found along the way that I need to set goals for myself, and my teaching, but not set goals or expectations that I have no control over.  Actually, I can’t give myself that credit, it was something that Hailey pointed out to me.  I told her that my goals were that I would educate my students the best I possibly could on accounting and business, and that they would get as good of a grade as they hoped or expected.  As she noted, I can set goals or expectations for myself, those things I have control over, but if it involves my students, that can only be a hope or wish that this happens.  I don’t have complete control over it.

My biggest joy?  I taught three yoga classes on campus, all in the same week.  This may seem like nothing to many, but it was everything to me.  To set the scene, for Wellness Week, the JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) Council wanted to have two yoga classes for students.  They asked me, since they knew I was technically, a yoga teacher.  I was going to chicken out, and ask Laurel to do it, but she is currently teaching a bazillion classes a week, and I knew she couldn’t.  So I agreed to teach the classes.  Then another student asked if I could teach a class for the one dorm the same week.  Sure, why not, what’s one more.

Surprisingly, I was incredibly calm, I was so nervous ever thinking about teaching a class, but once I “had to”, and didn’t have a choice, I wasn’t afraid.  While I’m sure my classes weren’t perfect, I really felt like they went really well.  One of my students from my Cost Accounting class, Jadelyn, came to all three of my classes, which I was deeply thankful for, and it made me feel so much more comfortable knowing at least one student in the room.  And, I’m so excited to say, we just started a Yoga Club on campus, and I’m going to be the Advisor for it.

Belonging

Somewhere, early in the semester, I had read “Braving the Wilderness”, and I put it back on the shelf once I was done with it.  I really enjoyed the book, and I learned a lot about belonging, as I have from other Brene Brown books, but it wasn’t until just a few weeks ago that the lesson became clearer. 

I’m not sure why, but I pulled the book off the shelf, I think I was looking for a quote in the book, and I stumbled on the subtitle for the book:

The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

The first part, I get, I’ve been trying to figure out where I truly belong all of my career, and really haven’t figured that out.  And potentially, I never will.  The second part is what hit me, and I can’t believe I never noticed it or let it sink in.  What I lack is the courage to stand alone.  That’s what I’ve been missing, and I don’t know why I never even noticed that on the cover of the book, maybe I didn’t want to see it, but now, I have, and now, I know.

To grant myself a bit of kindness, again, second post coming, I think I’m starting to see that, and I’m starting to live it.  Embarking on a brand new journey took some courage, and no doubt, I’ve learned, in many ways, I’m standing alone.  Taking on teaching a yoga class, that definitely pushed my courage levels.  And I’m pursuing other possible avenues, other ways to stand alone.  Some may pan out, some may not, but at least I’m venturing out and using my courage to stand alone.  We’ll see where it takes me.

The price is high.  The reward is great.

Expressing Gratitude to WIKA Upon My Departure

 “Every man has a vocation to be someone: but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill this vocation he can only be one person: himself.”

I come from an era where you were taught to stay with a company all your life.  I know, that has all changed.  Still, when I was at Barco, I bled Barco red, and I thought I would retire from there.  After 13+ years, I left for WIKA.  As I’m coming up on 15 years at WIKA, again, I’m saying goodbye.  I never thought this would happen, I thought for sure I’d retire from WIKA, but we’ll get to that later.  Most importantly, I want to express my gratitude to WIKA.  This has been an unbelievable journey, I never imagined something like this after leaving Barco, I never thought I’d work at such a great company again, but thankfully I did.  So, in no particular order, what I’m grateful for:

• An amazing owner.  Mr. Wiegand is brilliant, he somehow is able to foresee what the future holds for our industry, he knows the business better than anyone, but he also is incredibly kind and generous to his people.  I really couldn’t imagine a better owner or leader to work for.

• Very bright and ingenious engineering teams.  I thought I worked with the best engineers in the world at Barco, but the engineers at WIKA are incredible also.  In many ways, it’s different, it encompasses manufacturing engineering, along with some innovative design engineering, and it's just a great group of people to work with.  I’m constantly in awe at how smart some of these people are.

• An outstanding accounting and controlling team.  I was blessed to work with a great group that always went above and beyond.  My team was so good, I often thought and said, they really don’t need me, and to be honest, they didn’t.  They could run the financial side of the business on their own, and they always looked for how they could do even better.  Plus, as you can see, they were so much fun.

• A fun and dynamic Senior Management Team.  For many years, I just loved the Senior Management Team I was a part of.  We challenged each other, fought many times, pushed each other, and really had a great deal of fun together.  I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced such a great working relationship as we had for several years together, I really enjoyed and appreciated each of my colleagues for who they are and what they brought to the table.

• One of the two greatest leaders I’ve ever worked with in my life.  Michael Gerster is larger than life.  I’ve worked for two amazing leaders in my life, Michael and Jim Crane from Barco.  They are extremely different, but still, two of the best ever.  I used to say, I would run through a wall for Michael Gerster.  He spent so much time on the shop floor and throughout the building, he knew virtually everyone, and showed his appreciation for the people working there, he had a special presence about him.

• My colleagues in Latin America and my opportunity to travel there.  I spent about five years working with my colleagues in Latin America, and those were some of the best years of my life.  I learned what beautiful people and beautiful countries there were in that part of the world.  I was able to meet and work with some incredible people, and I can’t be thankful enough.  I will always cherish that experience.

• My colleagues in Lawrenceville.  I spent over 12 years there, and besides my team, there are so many great people there, particularly the people on the shop floor.  I used to love to walk the shop floor, and interact with the “value added” people.  They are the ones that make it all happen.

• The wonderful people at WIKA Sensor Technology.  It may be trite to say, but they are the salt of the earth.  There are so many moments I could highlight or illustrate, but what hit me most was when we moved into our new building, various people would be on their hands and knees, scraping tape off the floor, wiping down walls, doing anything and everything, without being asked, to make the place look presentable.  It is just an amazing group.  They would do anything they could for those lucky enough to work with them.  Leaving them is going to be very painful.

Of course, this would all beg the question, why in the world would I leave?  I have a few years left of working, why wouldn’t I take the traditional road and just finish my time at WIKA and ride off into the sunset?  My current boss, Todd Gardner, has been incredibly good to me.  I have so much respect for him, we left him with a complete shithole when he took over as President of WIKA Americas, and in the past few years, he has built it back up again, and made it into a vibrant organization.  No, he didn’t do it completely on his own, but his leadership, his vision, his business sense has been a big part of it.  Plus, he’s treated me very well, I really couldn’t ask for more.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

I remember many years ago, when I started my career at Touche Ross, before it eventually became Deloitte Touche and eventually Deloitte, we did a Myers-Briggs Personality exercise among our management team.  As we sat there with the facilitator, she put a line up on the board with many X’s clustered together on one end, and one X way off on the other end.  The X’s represented how we all tested.  Immediately several heads started shaking up and down, and a few of them said, “McCullough”.  Yes, I was the one who didn’t belong.

After 40 years of not belonging, of constantly being the salmon swimming upstream, I’ve grown weary, and I’m tired of not belonging.  Yes, I could continue to do this, I’ve somehow made at least a relatively good career while not belonging, I’ve worked for some of the best companies in the world, Deloitte, Barco, WIKA, and I’ve gotten to experience and be a part of some amazing journeys.  

Yes, the easy course, maybe the safest, and smartest, course would be to just keep on doing what I’m doing.  But something changed, something snapped, I couldn’t just keep on keeping on, I decided at 62, before it’s all too late, I need to be me, I need to do something I truly enjoy, and do what’s best for me.  I need to find my dharma, my true nature in life.

As I pondered this decision, I latched on to the guilt of leaving Todd, leaving my colleagues, leaving the group at WIKA Sensor Technology.  As I discussed it with Hailey, she asked, “What do the people closest to you think?”  So I asked them, Laurel, my children, my brother Jim, Sheila Ewers, Hailey, what do you think?

This is just a snippet of some of the responses I got back:

• You will be so good at this Steve!  It’s OK to be uncomfortable with change.  If it’s what you truly desire, take a deep breath, acknowledge the discomfort, and do it anyway.  The guilt and fear will fall away quickly once you have begun.

• Most of the people you’re feeling guilty about will be happy that you’re moving on to something better.

• You will enjoy that and that is so important.  Good for you!

• Would you rather feel guilt and shame or regret?

I sent those on to Hailey, and her reply was, “Seems like a no-brainer to me.”

Tell Me, What Is It You Plan To Do With Your One Wild and Precious Life?

What changed?  What brought me to this point after so many years?  Not sure but:  

• Maybe it was Laurel starting me on my yoga journey six years ago.  As I often say when I begin a

yoga class, “Thank you for bringing me here”.  One of the best decisions of my life.

• Maybe it was when I began my journey with Hailey about five years ago, and I learned how to walk in the dark and realize it’s simply a part of the journey.

• Maybe it was all the reading, Brene Brown, Rolf Gates, Naomi Levy, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Glennon Doyle, Valerie Kaur, Jack Kornfield, Michael Singer, Stephen Cope, so many great writings that inspired me to be me.  

• Maybe it was taking my Yoga Teacher Training last year in the Georgia Mountains with Sheila, Tami Roberts and the Chocolate Poet Society.   I never thought I could do it, and I never have experienced such a feeling of belonging in my life.

• Maybe it was taking a Pranayama and Meditation workshop at the same beautiful house with Sheila, Laurel and a wonderful group of young ladies this year.  I know people will think I’m crazy, but I believe I experienced God in an incredible meditation moment.

• Maybe it was being inspired by an amazing 28-year-old young lady, Carley DeMarco, who seems to see no barriers to trying new things and making them work.

A few months ago, I got approached by Vistage, it’s an organization that does training and coaching for business leaders.  They were inquiring if I’d be interested in becoming a Vistage Chair.  I had been a part of Vistage years ago, when I first started at WIKA.  I reached out to my former Vistage Chair, Lisa Dugan, and asked her advice.  One question she asked me was, “what do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

My immediate reaction, in my mind, was “I want to start a yoga studio!”

Spoiler alert, that’s not what I’m doing.  I have formulated a new plan, a new idea on that path, but it’s not fleshed out yet.  So, not yet.  Stay tuned.

But it got me thinking, what do I really want to do with the rest of my life?  Quite obviously, I don’t have much time left, at best 5-7 years left of working, and that is probably a stretch.  

I started looking for universities that might give me an opportunity to teach.  For seven years, while with WIKA in Georgia, I taught at Georgia Gwinnett College as an adjunct professor in the evenings, and I loved it.  Surprisingly, someone was interested, and I got an interview.  As I started the interview process, I found out one of the people on the search committee, Dr. Lindsey Mason, was from Georgia and had done some course work at GGC.  Serendipity.

I now start on a new journey, I will be an Accounting Professor at Ohio Dominican University.  I just loved when I read the section on their website that talked about Peace and Justice that said:

• Ohio Dominican University is committed to promoting peace and justice in the world by acting justly ourselves and by educating students to become ethical and effective leaders in the global society, grounded in the pursuit of truth, justice and peace.

When I took Laurel over to the campus on Memorial Day, it was so peaceful, it was quiet, only a few campus security personnel to be seen.  As we walked the path, we looked ahead, and we were shocked to see a baby deer lying under a bench, trying to get some relief from the intense sun that day.  Even as we got close to it, it didn’t move.  The calm, the peace, the beauty, the serenity of the campus moved us both, and we decided this was the next place for me.

Will this be where I finish my career?  Who knows?  Maybe I will start a yoga studio, or maybe I’ll become a Vistage chair, or maybe I’ll do something else where I’ll feel like I belong in my one wild and precious life.  The quote comes from a poem by Mary Oliver, and recently when Laurel and I were on a yoga retreat in the south of France, Sheila used it in one of our practices.  I had heard the quote before, but somehow it settled in quite nicely for me.  Yes, this is my one wild and precious life, and it’s time to embrace it and be who I want to be, and hopefully, just maybe, I’ll find where I belong.

A Brand New Day

 

A Return to Old School

 It All Started With Jack….

As many of you know, I have a serious monkey on my back.  OK, I probably have a whole barrel of monkeys on my back, but this particular monkey is Starbucks.  As I’ve shared, my daily routine always included a stop at Starbucks for my morning coffee.  I had my “home” Starbucks, I’d go each morning, I’d also get a drink for Laurel, and we’d go there together on weekends.  Oftentimes, I’d supplement at lunch time and go to my “work” Starbucks for another round of caffeine.  For those who are old like me, I was kind of like Norm at Cheers, the baristas could start making my drink as I walked through the parking lot.

Now, you may have thought that being diagnosed and having to deal with Crohn’s Disease may have cured my bad habit, but no, I just had to adjust my routine, no more dairy, I had to substitute non-dairy options.  Crohn’s was just a minor speed bump on my quest to feed my coffee addiction at Starbucks.

But something more dreadful did cure me, and led me to abandon Starbucks.  Lousy customer service.  Not just bad customer service, but really, really lousy customer service.  When we moved from Georgia to Ohio, I had to find new Starbucks, and I was able to quickly find a “home” Starbucks and a “work” Starbucks.  Similar to Dorothy not being in Kansas anymore, I sure as hell wasn’t in Georgia anymore.  I’m not sure which location was worse, but the tipping point came when I stood at the counter of the one location for several minutes when finally a young lady came to the counter and said, “Do you want to place an order or something?”  Hmmm, maybe not.

For those of you who don’t read my blog (the entire population minus my Mom and Laurel), you don’t

know I wrote a blog way back in 2019 about the merits of great customer service, and I highlighted my home Starbucks, and the outstanding job they did there at customer service.  The title of the blog was “Mary’s Gone Old School On Us!” because Mary had gone old school, she was outstanding at customer service, as were her colleagues, at that particular Starbucks.  To me the secret to great customer service is getting to know your customers, making them feel welcome, and treating them with kindness and compassion.  If you do, as long as you have a reasonably good product, they’ll keep coming back.  And if you haven’t figured it out, I have a passion for customer service, I believe it’s critical for our businesses, it’s critical for our economy.

Well, I was cured.  I came close to cutting up my gold Starbucks card, which I had carried since 2008, and sending it back to Starbucks to let them know that I was cured, don’t expect any more card refills from me.  And then Jack happened…

The one Saturday, Laurel and I had gone to yoga, somewhere between home and work, and I stopped into a different Starbucks.  We ordered, got our drinks, and we went on our way.  A few days later, I was out near that Starbucks, and I stopped by, and a funny thing happened.  Jack knew me by name.  And he also asked where my wife was.  I was astounded that after just one visit, he remembered me, and he also knew my wife had been with me the time before. 

The good news was that we had just built a new building and my work location moved, so I’m maybe five minutes from this Starbucks, so I started going in almost daily.  Jack would go out of his way to strike up a conversation with me anytime I’d come in, but it wasn’t just Jack.  The one time I tried ordering a drink, and they were out of the flavor I asked for, but Mary excitedly “sold” me on the Sugar Cookie Almond Milk Latte.  She couldn’t wait for me to try it, and the next time I came in, she couldn’t wait to find out if I liked it or not.  She was ecstatic that I gave it a thumbs up.

And it didn’t end.  The one day as I was waiting for my drink, a young lady was mopping the floor, and she struck up a conversation with me.  She spent her time as she mopped talking to me, asking questions, making me feel like, well, a valued customer. 

I have not had one bad experience at this Starbucks, so I have to chalk it up to good management, or maybe it’s they hire really well, or maybe we just have moved past the pandemic and Old School is on the rebound.  Each time I go there, the staff treats me like one of their friends (or maybe more appropriately, the grandfather of one of their friends).  I look forward to seeing them each time I stop in, and yes, I’m back to a daily Starbucks fix, largely due to great customer service.

I have to say, this Starbucks is not the only beacon of real customer service, there are at least pockets of it around us.

There is a small boutique shop called Honey & Abernathy in Delaware, near where we live.  They have unique gift items, but the draw is the great customer service that the ladies provide there.  Each time we go in, they are friendly, offer help, offer suggestions if we need it, tell us what is new in the store, and generally, just treat us like their friends.  Maggie is one of the young ladies that works there, and as Laurel said the one time, “she is just adorable”.  And in each of their own ways, all of the people that work there provide outstanding customer service.  I find it hard to believe that I’m admitting this, but over the Thanksgiving holiday, I saw on our credit card statement that we had made five purchases there. 

My favorite story though doesn’t even involve me.  I love it so much because it shows, as I noted in my previous blog, customer service, or essentially, kindness, flows both ways.  Laurel stopped into our local Kroger the one day to do her regular grocery shopping for the week.  As she was checking out, the cashier made the comment, “You’re always so nice, you always smile when you come through the check-out line.”  Laurel’s reaction was, “What other choice do I have?  What else would I do?”  But I’m sure that’s not what this lady experiences each day, there are so many times we can be rude, mean, or even scrolling on our phones rather than greeting the person who is providing a service to us.  It takes so little to be kind and compassionate to those around us, but as Laurel found that time, it can mean so much to the recipient.  Laurel brightened that cashier’s day, and in turn, she brightened Laurel’s day.

The monkey is firmly planted on my back again.  I blame Jack for this.  No, I blame Mary.  No, I blame Danielle and Katie and Samantha and Kyra and all the rest of the wonderful baristas at the Starbucks in Lewis Center.  I’ll gladly carry that monkey around if it means I get to experience Old School again.  Customer service isn’t dead.  Even COVID couldn’t kill it.

Epilogue: Today, I was on my way to Starbucks, and I called Laurel.  She said, “Are you on your way to Starbucks?  You really have a monkey on your back.”  And that was before I published this.

(Practicing) Gratitude

 “It seems that gratitude without practice may be a little like faith without works – it’s not alive” Brene Brown from “The Gifts of Imperfection”

OK, I’ve used this one before, but come on, it’s Brene Brown, how can I possibly go wrong?

A new year, a new resolution….

No, as I’ve noted before, I’ve taken a page out of my dear friend Dave Carr’s book, and I don’t do resolutions, I do words that I want to focus on this year.  This year’s word is Gratitude. 

Over a year ago, I did a blog post about Practicing Gratitude, and it focused on our long journey of moving to Columbus, looking for a building, eventually buying property and breaking ground on a new building, and all of the difficulties along the way. 

You can focus on all of the difficulties along the way, or you can find the many reasons to be grateful for what you have.  I wish I could say I always do the latter, but then again, I’m human.  As I pointed out in that blog post though, it’s easy to fall into the trap of bitching about everything, and it oftentimes feels really good.  But eventually, it loses its appeal, and it doesn’t feel very good anymore.

But gratitude.  Gratitude never disappoints.  If you stop and enumerate, highlight those things you can be grateful for, it gives you such a great feeling inside.

And 2022 gave me so many things to be grateful for.  Sure, there were many difficulties and hurdles along the way, but also, many magical and uplifting moments.  Just to name a few:

• Laurel and I had our 40^th wedding anniversary, and we were able to share the moment on a weekend with our four children and their spouses.  We had family portraits done, and we had a wonderful weekend together.  I’m not sure how it could have been a better experience.
  
  
  
• I completed my 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training in the spring with seven wonderful people and two outstanding teachers.  This was one of the best moments in my life, and I couldn’t have asked for a  better group of people to share it with.  I will never forget any of them, and I will never forget this experience.

• We moved into our new building at work.  To give some perspective on this, Bobby Herring, who ran the building project, and I reflected on our journey.  We started it three years ago, looking at existing properties.  We kept getting turned down, or the properties were, to be kind, shitholes.  We started looking at land, and eventually WIKA bought some land for us to build a building on.  We started construction last fall, and we eventually finished in December.  Three years, a lot of ups and downs, but finally, we are in our new building. 
  

I could go on and on enumerating the many gifts I have to be grateful for in 2022, but I’ll leave it with these three snippets.  Did everything go right in each of these situations?  Oh heavens no!  I could tell you all of the things that went wrong, all of the pitfalls.  But again, what good does that do?  In the end, these were moments to celebrate, and to be grateful for. 

For 2023, I choose gratitude.  I choose to look for the good, the positive, those things to celebrate rather than those nagging moments that can lead to negativity and bitching.  If I succeed, 2023 will be an even better year than 2022, no matter what happens.

The Beginning of the End?

I remember early in the 2000's, I was sitting in Yoav Nir's office at Barco in Kortrijk, Belgium, and he shocked me with the following: 

“When do you think the US won’t be the leading country in the world?”

The thought had never crossed my mind, and I was completely taken aback.

Yoav went on, “I mean, it’s inevitable.  Throughout history, every great country, Greece, Italy, England, has eventually fallen, has gone down in stature.  Eventually the same will happen to the US.  When do you think it will happen?”

I just couldn’t fathom this possibly happening.  For as long as I’ve known, and for as far as I could imagine, the US has and will be the greatest nation in the world.

As I sit here today, it’s obvious that has changed, and I sit here wondering, what was the beginning of the end?

There are a few potential tipping points along the way.  I know many would point to the rise of Donald Trump and the potential Civil War that his Presidency created, but it happened much before then, and really, we can’t blame him, it’s not his fault, it’s all of our fault.

I’ve thought a lot about what the beginning of the end was, and I still have no idea, but I have a few thoughts or really, only opinions, on when the beginning of the end was for us.

Maybe it was 9/11

It was a huge moment in our history, it was devastating, it shook the nation, and we suffered massive terrorism on our own soil, and we came together as a nation afterward.  But, we also showed our really, really ugly underbelly in the process. 

We have a long history of hatred and white supremacy, but we shined brightly after 9/11.  We took out our wrath on anyone who “looked like them”.  By that I mean, anyone who looked in any remote way like a Muslim.  If you were from the Middle East, or looked like you were, you were subject to death threats, terrorism, racial slurs, any form of hatred that we could impose upon them.

Keep in mind, the KKK has its roots in white supremacy and Christianity, so this wasn’t anything really new.  But it seemed that we were now able to justify our hatred, and instead of hiding underneath a cape to terrorize and kill people, we were doing it openly.  Clearly not the beginning, definitely not the end, but in many ways, it seemed 9/11 changed us for the worse.

Maybe it was the growth and impact of Fox “News”

Fox News began back in the late 1990’s, but has grown into a phenomenon.  Bill O’Reilly began the myth of the “War on Christmas”, and his cohorts on Fox have been able to keep it rolling.  Now American Christians lose their minds when people say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas”.  As noted, anyone of different religious faiths can be subject to slurs, threats and even death in the US, but American Christians can’t handle the pain and suffering that comes with hearing those dreaded words, “Happy Holidays”.

The current crop of Fox talking heads like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham love to look for any opportunity to make veiled and overt racist comments.  While I have found most news sources to be less than reliable anymore, you would have to put a gun to my head to get me to watch Fox News.  Having said all that about them, they have found a very popular niche with their brand of hate for anything different and driving a stake between white Christian America and everyone else.

Maybe it was when we elected a black President

I still have no idea how this happened.  Maybe we should rewind the clock and say the election was stolen?  OK, bad joke.

I was always a life-long Republican, I voted straight party until 2016 when the Republican party jumped off the rails.  I haven’t gone back, and I may never go back. 

While I never voted for President Obama, the funny thing was, I could never come to dislike him.  I will say I despised Bill Clinton, and Hillary also, or for that matter most Democrats, but I just couldn’t find a good reason to dislike President Obama.  I didn’t always agree with him, but I thought he was a really good leader.

The interesting thing for me was seeing some of my friends and colleagues who shared my views on politics lose their minds about him.  What was intriguing was the comments were largely not about policy, it was about how he acted.  The most common I heard was, “He’s so arrogant, I can’t stand him!”  I often wondered, would we feel this way if he were white?

The End

Maybe I exaggerate, but I definitely feel like this is the end.  While many will find their own reasons to see the end as near, here are mine:

Guns > Children

Or more importantly, the money from the gun lobby over children.  The NRA has a stranglehold on our politicians, many of them should display their sponsors like NASCAR drivers to show who is funding them.  The NRA spends millions to own our, or I should say, their, politicians.

For those of you who believe we should all be armed to rise up in the event of some sort of overthrow of the government, you’ve watched too many movies like “Red Dawn”, where a group of teenagers fought back against a Russian invasion.   It may work in Hollywood, but not in real life.

Sadly, we are willing to allow our children to be slaughtered just so we can keep our guns, and keep in mind, most sane people don’t want to ban all guns, just assault weapons.

Book Banning

I really find it hard to believe I’m even having to say this, but book banning?  I’ve read some of the lists of books that are being banned in areas of our country, and many are some of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read.  Toni Morrison, my favorite author, seems to top the list, but I guess that’s understandable since she’s a black woman.  Many others are just flat out stunning, at first I thought it was a joke, but as I did more research, no, unfortunately, it wasn’t a joke.  We are banning great works of literature because apparently they are too controversial.  To be clear, this is coming from both sides, liberals and conservatives are advocating book banning.

If you look back in history, this is typically a downfall of society, a way to control the population by leaving them uneducated or trying to control what they read.  This isn’t anything new, and it has historically led to the demise of the nation.

Christian Nationalism

This country was founded on religious liberties, and was clearly founded on the separation of church and state.  If we want to change that, if we want to impose Christianity as the religion of this country, we have fundamentally lost who we are as a nation. 

Taking it a step further, I worship one God, but I honor those who have a different form of worship and worship a different God, and I believe our country should not play any part in this.  And, worshipping one God, I don’t worship this country, it is a country I love, but I don’t worship it.

Shipping Migrants

How we treat immigrants (visitors) to our country is appalling.  Can we justify shipping these people to distant parts of our country, or even back to their own country where their death is a most likely outcome?

For me, this is the tipping point.  I really don’t care what your politics are, but if you find this acceptable, or really, if you don’t find this appalling, I believe you have lost all sense of humanity, and really, as a country, we have.

Again, politics aside, these are human beings.  Using human beings as a political tool is beyond condemnation, those who perpetrated this should be tried for their crimes and put in jail.  If our fine governors in Florida and Texas had shipped a bunch of puppies and kittens to the Northeast, the cries of foul play would have been deafening, but in this case, it was just people of brown skin, so largely, we could give a shit. 

How close are we to getting the trains ready to ship these people to concentration camps, and then, to the gas chambers?  Oh wait, we love our guns so much, I’m sure we could come up with a way to use our guns to eliminate anyone who doesn’t look like us, talk like us, and worship like us. 

I’ve sat on this post for a couple months, trying to come up with a positive spin to this.  Sadly, I can’t, I can’t seem to find the pony in the box, we have stooped to such a level of hate for anyone of colors other than white, religion other than ultra-conservative Christianity, and nationalities other than our own, that I can’t see a way to recover.  I’ve been blessed over the last 25+ years to work for international companies, and I’ve spent a great deal of my time in countries in Latin America and Europe, and I’ve seen how loving and caring so many of the people in those countries are. 

And maybe, that’s just it.  As I drive through the country roads in Ohio, I see American flags everywhere.  I see and experience white people who embrace the flag, their religion, their heritage.  And I go back to what my dear friend Dave Carr taught me so many years ago.  The opposite of love isn’t hate.  The opposite of love is fear.

So many of these people are afraid of disappearing into nothingness, into oblivion, just being another person, a minority amongst all of the sea of colors.  I’ve been blessed to be able to experience the beauty of the rainbow of colors.  Many of these people haven’t been.  I’m not defending them, but I am trying to understand them.  I’m still not able to put a positive spin on all of this, but at least I’m trying to understand how we have become who we are.  Until we embrace who we are, and how far we have sunk, we have no hope of ever coming back to even a good country.  Fear has won our hearts. 

  

Just the Way You Are

 

A Beautiful Mind

 Editor’s Note: God has blessed me with a tremendous gift of a vivid imagination that has been very valuable in my life.  At times, the gift has become a curse when it’s taken me down very dark and painful paths, different, but similar, to what Russell Crowe portrayed in the movie "A Beautiful Mind".  The key is to learn how to best navigate when on those paths.

Last week was a long one, I had to go to Georgia for a week of meetings, I flew out early Monday morning, had meetings every day, dinners at night, long days, great deal of work, and Friday came, and Friday belonged to me.  I was flying back, I was going home, but I was going to go see Hailey for a therapy session before returning home.  I had a whole list of stuff to discuss with her, it would be a very valuable visit, and I love in-person visits much more than remote.

The morning started off well, I got up early, went down to the treadmill and got a run in, and then came up to my hotel room to call Laurel.  I called her, but she didn’t answer, so I texted her, to see if she was around, but she didn’t respond.  As some of you know, I can start worrying pretty quickly, but I thought, it’s first thing in the morning, she probably took the dogs out for a walk.

I called again, no answer.  Well, she might be in the shower by now.  I called again, no answer.  It’s been about 20 minutes, it’s still possible, dogs, shower, making the bed, something.  I’ve been down this road many times before, I know I can go into panic mode pretty quickly, so I kept coming up with reasons why she wasn’t answering.  It was between 6 and 7 am, so she has to be home, usually I would check “Find My Phone” to see if she was there, but somehow that didn’t cross my mind.

I called again, no answer.  I called again, no answer.  This eventually kept going on, more rapidly.  I sent her a text and told her I was calling 911.  Now, some of you have read before, I would typically engage the kids, and get them to call and text her, but as noted, it was between 6-7 in the morning, so I didn’t.  I texted a friend, Aparna.  Aparna lives about 10 minutes from us, so I thought if she didn’t answer Aparna, I could beg her to go over and check on Laurel.  No answer from Aparna.  Was there something wrong with my phone?

I called some more.  I thought of texting my cousin Marlene because her daughter Leah lives about five minutes from us, I could get Leah or her husband Jordan to go over and check on Laurel.  But I chose not to weave another person or people into my web of irrationality.

As time moved to 50 minutes or an hour, I came to the conclusion that Laurel was dead.  Maybe, maybe she was unconscious, and there was still hope, but most likely, she was dead.  I quit calling, and started planning the next steps as I would have to figure out the rest of my life without her.  There was no rational reason that I could come up with for her not answering her phone.

Just then, my phone was ringing, and I saw it was Laurel.  I quickly answered to her yelling, “What is wrong with you!  I looked and you called 11 times!  Why do you do this?”

I was crying hysterically by then, and blubbering, “I don’t know.  I thought you were dead.  I’m sorry.”

“Did you text the kids?”

“No, I texted Aparna.”

“Ahhh!  You have to do something!  You can’t keep doing this!  Are you having hallucinations?  You need to talk to Hailey about this today!”

“No, I’m not having hallucinations, I was just so worried, I thought you were dead, it was so real, and I didn’t know what I’d do with the rest of my life without you, I couldn’t bear it.”

“Well I’m not dead, but I could die tomorrow, but you need to live your life today and enjoy it and not worry about me possibly dying tomorrow!”

I finally calmed down, and we hung up.  At this point, I was completely exhausted, I was an emotional wreck, and I knew more than ever, I can’t keep doing this, this isn’t living.

I went to see Hailey, and before Hailey could even get through pleasantries, I immediately started, “You have to help me, I can’t keep doing this, this is exhausting, I can’t keep doing this to Laurel, I drive her crazy, and I really can’t keep doing this to myself, I can’t live my life like this.”

We started on techniques to deal with my anxiety when I can’t reach Laurel.  I need to come up with reasons why she isn’t answering.  I tried that, but it went beyond my sphere of rational reasons.  I need to work on my breathing, and do some calming and cleansing breaths.  I should have thought of that, I know better.  I could identify the five senses and what I’m feeling from each of my senses.  I’ve done that before, and I like that one, it distracts me.  We discussed technology, and there are options, but with technology, there are also pitfalls.  We discussed many options that we could try to help me gain peace if Laurel is not answering her phone.

I shared with Hailey how real it was, how I created a whole new life, post-Laurel, and what that looked like.  I had already started mapping it all out.  She said, OK, let’s go there, what does it look like, step by step?

• I figured someone would go to the house, maybe Aparna, maybe our neighbor Anne, maybe the police, and they would find Laurel dead.
• I probably couldn’t get an earlier flight home, so I would come to see you anyway to help me figure out how to deal with losing Laurel.
• I would go the airport and fly home.
• I would have to deal with the administrative part of identifying the body, or doing whatever is needed if you lose a loved one.
• I would need to call all of the kids.  I would probably reach out to their spouses first, so they could be with them when I told each of my children, because I would want someone to be there to comfort them.
• I would have to start planning the funeral.  Should it be in Ohio?  Should it be in Georgia?  Should we do one in both places?  Who should officiate?  Maybe Catherine Foster?  Maybe Sandy McConnel?
• I don’t want to plan a funeral, I just want to curl up in a ball and be by myself.  And cry a lot.
• I’d probably quit my job, because I really wouldn’t want to be around people.
• I’d hopefully continue to walk and run, because I’d like to make sure that I didn’t deteriorate completely.
• I don’t know if I’d do yoga anymore because it was something Laurel and I always did together, and I wouldn’t want people to pity me.  Hailey assured me that people would, maybe not pity me, but they would feel empathy toward me and that would be normal.
• I’d worry about being a recluse because as time has gone on, I really don’t feel like I’m a complete person without Laurel.  I shared with Hailey something from the book I’m reading now, “The Light We Give”, which said, “the two bodies remain distinct, and yet they have become so much a part of each other that it’s not possible to simply pull one apart from the other.”
• I’d worry about becoming an alcoholic.  Hailey quickly replied, “Really, you think that’s possible?”  As I thought about it, I worry about it since it’s in my family history, but then again, because of that, I don’t worry about it, I’m careful to avoid that.
• I’d always have to have two dogs.  Hailey again asked, “Why two dogs?”  I’d need to have something to take care of or I might commit suicide, and I need two, just in case one dies.  I know, it doesn’t make sense, but to me, it does.
• I told her that I just don’t know if I could go on.  Every time we go into Savasana in yoga, when
  
  we roll to one side, I always look at Laurel and think how beautiful she is.  When we drive down the road, I look over at her and think how beautiful she is.  I just couldn’t imagine my life without her.  Hailey said, “This would be the hardest thing you’d ever go through in your life, but you’d survive.  You would be OK, not right away, but eventually, you’d be OK”.
• I told her that we would be spending a LOT more time together….

As noted, 50 minutes, maybe an hour, this is the new reality I created.  I imagined a new world, a new life, my path forward without Laurel, and how miserable it would be.  A beautiful mind, but in this case, that beautiful mind created a living hell for me to endure.  And unfortunately for me, I can make it seem so real.  It was real.

But, and there is a very important but in all of this, I tried to come up with the “pony in the box” or the good that came of all of this.  In no particular order:

•  As much as I knew, this can’t go on, I really found, this can’t go on.  I just can’t keep doing this to everyone, but particularly me, I can’t stress myself, exhaust myself, terrorize myself like this anymore.  I know I need to live my life, and I have to figure out how to do it without doing this.
• I really realized what’s most important.  A few weeks ago, Hailey and I were talking, and I brought up something that was bothering me at work.  She asked me, “On a scale of 1-10, 10 being a loved one dies, where does this fall?”  Well, maybe a 2.  I had a long week of really important meetings this week, but I quickly saw that as important as they were, they were still a 2-3 compared to what my mind created on Friday.  None of it matters if I don’t have the most important person in my life.
• I was really subdued, grateful, peaceful the rest of the day.  I was much kinder to all the travelers I met along the way, I offered a young guy like me some help when he was struggling with his bags in the airport.  I had gotten a reprieve from the reality I had created.
• I came up with new or better techniques to deal with these situations going forward, including Laurel agreeing to allow me to install a camera in the house, so I can see her if she’s not answering the phone.  The reality is she wants it for pet sitters, but I’ll take success any way I can get it.     

When I see her face, there’s not a thing that I would change, cause you’re amazing, just the way you are

I got home on Friday, I hugged Laurel so hard, and I cried and cried.  It was still so real.  The next morning, we were driving to yoga, and the song, “Just the Way You Are” came on, and I burst into tears.  We were watching a show about a man who lost his wife, and I started crying.  I’ve spent the entire weekend, tearing up periodically, getting emotional,  because it was just too real, I had created a new reality that was just too painful to experience.

And why am I sharing this?  Beats the living shit out of me.  You all are probably thinking I’m crazy, and you’re probably right.  While I can assure you that I wasn’t hallucinating as Laurel asked me and Russell Crowe portrayed so beautifully in “A Beautiful Mind”, it was real, just way too real. 

A new week, a new journey for work.  I hope and pray that it is much less eventful than last week.  I’ll do my best not to text anyone (this means you Aparna) ….